A known sunroof device has been disclosed, for example, in a Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication 2000-85367. The sunroof device has a deflector provided at a front end of an opening provided at a roof of a vehicle. The deflector can extend above an upper surface of the roof and can be folded below the upper surface of the roof. The deflector includes a hooked portion for restricting extending movement of the deflector. When the deflector exterids to the upper limit, the hooked portion contacts with a stopper provided on a vehicle frame member.
Recently, the size of the opening of a roof has been enlarged so that an occupant of a vehicle can feel more comfortable. So a deflector, which is provided at a front end of the opening to prevent aerial vibration from generating due to wind blowing in a vehicle compartment, needs to be formed so that the deflector can extend further upward above the upper surface of the roof. In the known sunroof device, above described, when a deflector with elongated extending distance is provided, height dimension of the deflector is enlarged. Thus, when the deflector is folded, larger space for housing the device is required because of the enlarged height dimension. This may cause a limited vehicle compartment space.
The present invention therefore seeks to provide an improved sunroof device capable of extending further upward as well as of being folded within a small space.